When Craig Guilford, Chief Constable of the West Midlands, was told that local Islamist thugs were going to ‘’arm themselves’’ and attack Israeli football fans if they came to Birmingham, he made two disgraceful and quite wrong decisions.
The first was to say in that case, we must bow to the threat and ban the Jewish fans. Instead, his reaction should have been: since these fans have done nothing wrong, we will simply draft in more police to line the streets to keep these Maccabi fans safe.
As a police force, we cannot allow threats from Islamist thugs to decide who can and who cannot attend our football matches.
If we ban Jews every time Islamist thugs make a threat, the lives of our Jewish community would be intolerable. Bow to the bully and pay forever.
Mr Guilford’s second appalling decision was to keep the fact that the violent threats were being made to himself. He didn’t tell the media, he didn’t tell the local council leader, he didn’t tell worried Jewish organisations, nor did he even fess up to the Commons select committee when he was first hauled in front of them.
In fact, Mr Guilford and his closest colleagues allowed everybody to believe that they had received ‘’intelligence’’ from Dutch police that Maccabi fans had been violent when following their team in a European game in Amsterdam and on that basis should be kept out of the West Midlands.
Bow to the threat of Islamists and forever pay the price. The police chief must go - Kelvin MacKenzie | PA
That was rubbish. The Dutch police have since said there is no ‘’intelligence’’ to support the claim. Anyway, Mr Guilford had to appear in front of MPs again yesterday because they thought that he hadn’t been totally candid when he came before them a month or so back.
They didn’t know the half of it.
He was questioned as to why he hadn’t told anybody the crucial fact that Maccabi fans weren’t the bad guys but were actually at risk from Muslim gangs.
His reply: Nobody asked me. Beyond belief.
Here was a national debate – with even Starmer getting involved and being critical of the ban, which he called anti-semitic - and he, the Chief Constable, knew something of vital importance yet had remained schtum.
Information is power. He had it and decided he sat above democracy. Anyway, that decision will have done for him. He will have to go. Today preferably.
Strangely, his future lies in the hands of the local crime commissioner, Simon Foster, a solicitor. Mr Foster doesn’t have to spend much time pondering.
Mr Guilford made a huge error on a massively important subject. As the number of Muslims grows in our country ( approximately four million, 6.5 per cent of the population, based on the 2021 survey), I suspect there will be more flexing of the electoral muscles by followers of Islam.
We need our leaders in Westminster to lay down the law to Chief Constables and the like, that violent threats to minorities like the Jews will not be tolerated. In Birmingham, the reverse happened.
That is why, after three decades in the force, Mr Guilford should go. It would be better if he resigned, accepting that he made at least two serious errors. I suspect he won’t do the right thing, and therefore, he must be fired.
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